Leave aside all our reports on new antibiotics for now, and our incessant appeals for money. One thing we haven’t really covered is: what is the state of antibiotic matters on the ground, in an actual real live population? Well, wiser minds than ours have answered that call. One of them is Nicola Davis of the Guardian [1] whose piece Antibiotic Resistant Infections rise in England is a tour de force of careful science journalism. It gives a snapshot of one representative country (UK) at one time (last five years) But it could stand in for many. We won’t steal Nicola’s thunder, you should read this for yourself. But it’s good idea of how the whole antibiotics thing is playing out beyond the world of laboratory and newsroom.
Covid had an effect severe antibiotic resistant infections are down compared with 2018, but both cases and deaths are rising again as we slowly come back to normal
Things ain’t too good About 20% of blood infections are now antibiotic resistant
Resistance is rising Following the lead of the UK Health Security Agency[2][3] Nicola singles out two organisms which are evolving fast : Klebsiella pneumoniae and our old chum E. coli.
It’s not just bacteria Think about this:
…….. there have also been increases in other types of antimicrobial-resistant infections, with a 23.2% increase in bloodstream infections caused by a type of fungus called candida between 2019 and 2022. Such infections had been falling before the pandemic
There’s much, much more. But Nicola’s meaning is plain. Antibiotics new and old, as well as the other techniques we sometimes cover must in the last resort function in the context of public health. And the key to that is education, not scientific research.
[2]https://www.gov.uk/government/news/antibiotic-resistant-infections-and-associated-deaths-increase
[3] https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/uk-health-security-agency
#bacteria #fungus #antibiotic resistance #microbes #public health
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